John Eliot (1604-1690) was born in Widford, England, and graduated from Cambridge. He worked for Thomas Hooker (founder of Connecticut) at his school in Essex. When Hooker escaped England for the Netherlands, Eliot came to Boston in 1631, where he helped compile the Bay Psalm Book. For over forty years he would preach in Roxbury. Many of the Christians who came Read more...
From Wikipedia: John Eliot (c. 1604—21 May 1690) was a Puritan missionary to the American Indians who some called “the apostle to the Indians”[1][2][3] and the founder of Roxbury Latin School in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1645. Produced the first Bible published in America Read more...
Thomas Hooker was born in Leicestershire, England, and graduated from Cambridge with a Master’s in 1611, the year the translators produced the Authorized (King James) Bible. Hooker pastored in Surrey starting in 1620, and then in Chelmsford in 1626. But in 1629, because of his Puritan sympathies he was forced to flee to Rotterdam, and then in 1633, following the Read more...
Thomas Hooker (see his statue nearby) would continue to minister until his death in 1647. He was buried in the “Ancient Burying Ground” near the original site of the church. In 1739, First Church would move to its current spot, adjacent the Ancient Burying Ground, where it is now known as Center Church. The marker by his grave reads: Thomas Read more...
Inscription: A group of Separatist from the Church of England, later named Pilgrims, left England for Holland in 1608 in settled in Leiden in 1609. After staying there for 11 years, the group sailed back to England on the ship Speedwell, where they joined by more immigrants along with a larger ship, the Mayflower. Although both ships set out together, Read more...
William Jennings Bryan test-drove the greatest speech in American history, “The Cross of Gold” in Perry, Illinois, on the lawn of Perry Presbyterian church. Bryan would go on to deliver this speech at the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The speech would propel the “Boy orator of the Plains” to be the 1896 Democratic nominee for President of the Read more...
Inscription: On this site on July 4th, 1883, distinguished American William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) began his practice of law and journey to national prominence. The forthright, spirited Bryan would become a Congressman from Nebraska, three-time Democratic nominee for President, and Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson. Photo by Jason Voigt, May 12, 2020 HMDB.org Read more...
Newton Bateman (1822-1897) was born in poverty in New Jersey, moved to Illinois, started a school in St. Louis, then became Illinois Superintendent of Public Instruction, and authored the Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois. While Bateman was a student at Illinois College here in Jacksonville, Lincoln was a state legislator representing nearby in New Salem, in the also nearby Springfield. They Read more...
Inscription: In 1782, at the coffee house on Market Street, Robert Aitken, bookseller, publisher and printer issued the FIRST BIBLE PRINTED IN ENGLISH. Printed in America, which by Congressional Resolution was recommended “To the inhabitants of the United States.” One of the Chaplains of the congress of the United States who examined this Bible was Bishop William White, the first Read more...
Inscription America’s first Bible society, founded in 1808 by Robt. Ralston, Bishop Wm. White, and Dr. Benj. Rush. In 1812 PBS was first in the U.S. to print Bibles using stereotyped plates which made them affordable and advanced literacy. Bible House has been its center of distribution since 1854. Photo By Thomas Anderson, January 25, 2019, HMDB.org Read more...
Lyman Beecher was Henry Ward Beecher’s father, a traditional Calvinist that would be common in Puritan New England. Yet as the 1800s went on, Henry Ward Beecher would lay the foundation for the “social gospel” movement. “Harry Emerson Fosdick would comment that whenever we preach freely to sympathetic audiences the social gospel…, we are building on foundations that Mr. Beecher Read more...
Inscription: This marker commemorates the placement of the first 25 Bibles in November 1908 by the Gideons in the Superior Hotel, Superior (formerly Iron Mountain), Montana then located on this spot. From that small beginning, The Gideons International has placed multiplied millions of Scriptures throughout the world. To God be the Glory(second plaque above) This marker commemorates the 100th. anniversary Read more...
From HMDB.orgPreacher “One of the most useful qualifications of a good minister is that he have a lively sense of religion upon his own heart.” John Witherspoon Born in Gifford, Scotland, in 1723, Witherspoon was educated at the University of Edinburgh, completing his divinity studies in 1743. The son of a clergyman, he became pastor of the Presbyterian congregation in Read more...
From Wikipedia: Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German: [ˈdiːtʁɪç ˈbɔn.høː.fɐ] (listen); 4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity’s role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship has been described as a modern classic.[1] Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including Read more...
From Wikipedia: The Sutherland Springs church shooting occurred on November 5, 2017, when Devin Patrick Kelley of New Braunfels, Texas, fatally shot 26 people and wounded 20 others during a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in Texas and the fifth-deadliest mass shooting in the United States.[2][note 1] It was the deadliest shooting in an Read more...
From Wikipedia: Patmos (Greek: Πάτμος, pronounced [ˈpatmos]) is a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea. It is perhaps best known today as the location the disciple / apostle John received the visions found in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament, and where the book was written. Read more...
From Mat Staver: John Allen Chau, a Covenant Journey alumni, was martyred on November 17, 2018 by the Sentinelese tribal people on the island of North Sentinel. “When I heard the news of John’s death, I couldn’t believe it. I was numb. John loved people, and he loved Jesus. He was willing to give his life to share Jesus with Read more...
A bronze sculpture of Amy Carmichael, the famous missionary who established the Dohnavur Fellowship in India, was unveiled on Saturday (16th December) at a private ceremony at Hamilton Road Presbyterian Church in Bangor. Amy was born on 16th December 1867 in Millisle County Down and later moved to Japan and then India to serve as a missionary. In 1901 she Read more...
From Wikipedia: Initially Carmichael traveled to Japan for fifteen months, but fell ill and returned home.[3] After a brief period of service in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), she went to Bangalore, India for her health and found her lifelong vocation. She was commissioned by the Church of England Zenana Mission. Carmichael’s most notable work was with girls and young women, some of whom were Read more...
From the Wheaton Vault From Wikipedia: Tsingtao (today called Qingdao), a city on the east coast of China, was Betty Stam’s childhood home; she (the oldest of five children) grew up there, where Betty’s father, Charles Scott, was a missionary.[3] In 1926, Betty returned to the United States to attend college. While a student at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago she met John Stam, who was Read more...
